


wire from the box

by goshemily



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Haircuts, M/M, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-30
Updated: 2012-07-30
Packaged: 2017-11-11 01:59:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/473202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goshemily/pseuds/goshemily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ryan resolutely ignores the fact that sometimes, way back at the beginning, way back when they had screaming fights over <em>fever</em> and could hardly stand to be in the same room, he also used to think about brendon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wire from the box

**Author's Note:**

> title from "[my hero bares his nerves](http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16430)," by dylan thomas. old fic from 2009. melodrama alert!

brendon does a shoot in an edgy magazine because of the new album. someone’s all “ryan, dude, brendon has naked pictures” and ryan’s all “sure” and thinks how ridiculous the idea is, and then at some party he’s bored and flipping through the stuff on the coffee table and he sees the spread. he stares for a really long time and doesn’t hear what anyone is saying until alex kind of pokes him in the side of the head, and then ryan’s like “what? what?” and discreetly rolls the magazine up and spirits it away.

and then the pictures just kind of hang out in his head for awhile, and he keeps thinking about them when he jerks off, thinks about them more often than is strictly polite when it comes to a former bandmate. they’re arty, okay? ryan resolutely ignores the fact that sometimes, way back at the beginning, way back when they had screaming fights over _fever_ and could hardly stand to be in the same room, he also used to think about brendon.

it’s not like he was creepy or obsessed or anything. it’s more like he had a crush (a crush tied up with needing to get out, needing to go, needing brendon to sing them away and so needing to make brendon get it _right_ ) (a crush tied up with terror and the need to control, a crush that made him lash out just to show off that he could). but he got over his crush quick. the touring started, and brendon stayed out drinking with the academy, came in late with bitten lips and rumpled hair, and there was too much yelling, and it was too easy to want to wound brendon to make himself feel better, and it was too easy for a scared brendon to scream back. so ryan stopped having a crush and stopped thinking about brendon, except sometimes, when he thought about brendon’s spine at the piano, or the freckles on his shoulders, or how he was so, so quiet when he came.

but he never meant to think about brendon like that, and he really never meant to after the band broke up, and he really really never meant to after seeing pictures of brendon posed artfully naked (and ryan still doesn’t know if he likes the grinning picture or the still one better), so it is really fucking inconvenient when pete invites ryan over for dinner and it turns out that brendon is sitting shirtless on the pool deck, arms around his knees.

ryan knows why he’s here now. it’s not to make amends. no, pete totally suspects something’s going on and he wants to know what. pete’s wrong. there’s nothing going on. ryan and brendon didn’t break up the band because they were secretly dating. they broke up the band because they hated each other in the way that you do when you’re used to fighting with someone, when you’re used to frustratingly stupid fights about tracklisting and used to ending the day with slammed doors but also used to harmonizing and leaning into the same microphone and used to always, always knowing the other person will be onstage too and will make it more real.

so the photoshoot totally weirds ryan out because of course brendon’s performing for the camera, it’s what he _does_ , but there’s also a certain weight in the picture where he looks straight at the lens, a _this is me. take me as i am_. the one where he’s lounging and grinning and kind of saucy is sexy in the ridiculous “this is a song about fucking! we like to fuck!” way, and the one where he’s looking off to the side like the photographer caught him in between poses (the one that makes ryan most glad this is a black and white shoot) is beautiful. but the one where he’s looking at the photographer dead-on is a look ryan knows, and yeah it’s quiet but it’s also just a little bit angry.

it’s the same look on brendon’s face as when he stands and opens pete’s sliding door slowly, staring at ryan as if it had been ryan’s idea to show up.

they’re both pretty painfully clipped, “hi.” “hi.” “i didn’t know you’d be here.” “i didn’t either.” and ryan is wishing brendon would find a shirt and put it on already and then pete bounds in, arms akimbo and fluttering and “brendon, your _shorts_ , they are covered in dinosaurs, i must have them, where are they from” as though he didn’t insist brendon buy them on a coerced joint shopping trip, as though he’s not in the room with eyebrows raised just to see what happens.

but they’re at a stalemate, just looking, completely out of or choked on words to say to each other, and ryan can see pool water beading on brendon’s crossed arms and he can see the look on brendon’s face, and he can’t get the pictures out of his head. he breaks away first, some lame question about bronx, follows pete into the kitchen and sits on a stool next to a counter full of takeout, nods and monotones his way through a conversation about healthcare and yellow versus blue sneakers and sixteen different books he’s never read and not the fact that panic!’s album comes out next month and he thinks he’s safe but after dinner pete sits back from his lo mien, burps expansively, pats his stomach, and says “so, brendon. any backlash from having your dick on the internet?”

the brendon from nothing rhymes with circus would have blushed to his ears and laughed nervously, and the brendon from the honda civic tour would have stuttered out a jokey response and looked to someone else for confirmation. ryan knows that, and he thinks that the brendon from rockband live and south africa would have pretended to smile easily and shrug even as his leg twitched uncontrollably. but now brendon just raises his eyes to pete from shoving his food around his still mostly full plate and says without any inflection “no.”

he inhales quick like he’s steeling himself for something, but then he’s smiling sunny and ridiculous and very false and has clearly decided that deflection is the best tactic. either that or he doesn’t give a fuck about ryan’s opinion anymore, because he’s laughing breathlessly to ryan, all “this magazine totally just called, like ‘do you guys want to make out for us?’ and spencer was like ‘i lived with him, i've seen enough of him naked already’ so i was like ‘okay!’ and pete -” and he turns back to pete who builds off the story with something about strippers and an fbr calendar of dudes, and ryan really can’t stand this bullshit. he’s getting tighter and tighter the more loose brendon pretends to get, so when pete mournfully asks why the magazine didn’t hire shane, with all his expertise in home porn shoots, ryan says, “i thought the pictures looked fine.”

he’s not sure what he expects. to shut brendon up, maybe, or to shock him the same way he shocked ryan. maybe at least make him put on a shirt. but brendon runs right over him, manic with more jokes, and ryan finally gets that brendon’s a little bit desperate and trying to hold himself together. ryan has no idea what to do with that information, no idea if brendon is just overwhelmingly angry or something else, no way to process it or handle it and no room to think about it with pete jabbering away next to him, so he cuts over pete and picks a fight so he can get himself back to somewhere safe.

“i’m just glad you didn’t do this while the band was together,” he sneers, and they’re off, brendon stunned for less than a second and then “the band _is_ together, you’re just not in it anymore,” and pete says “guys. GUYS.” and right about the time they’re really getting into the worst of it, the stupid childish cruel things they used to never even _think_ of saying (“well i’m sorry your family didn’t love you enough to stop you from coming with us if it was such a terrible idea!” “well i’m sorry your father wasn’t there for our last vegas show!”) pete yells “STOP!” and bronx starts to cry from an upstairs room. “i have to go take care of him,” pete says. “when i come down i want to hear you apologize to each other.”

as pete stomps away ryan looks at brendon, says, “i’m glad you didn’t do this while the band was together, because i got tired of being asked if you’re gay,” and leaves. when he gets home the thought of jerking off makes him curl into a ball in his bed and try to pretend that his last shot didn’t come across like he knew brendon looked like a piece of softcore porn.

he keeps his limbs tense and his eyes shut and his teeth gritted against the instant replay in his head and he ignores his phone buzzing on the floor. eventually he falls asleep through sheer will power but his dreams are sharp flashes all night, the bus lounge and watching _velvet goldmine_ and mirrors and things he swears he never said and brendon’s refusal to look at ryan on the plane back from south africa and brendon laughing wide down a dark hallway. ryan wakes up hard and miserable.

the day is very much like any other from the past year, sunny in the harsh browns and blues of the l.a. monochrome, fiddling around with arrangements to take on the road, an evening of getting stoned and watching the glare of lights against the smog. ryan loves los angeles. he loves that he never has to be alone if he doesn’t want to be.

he calls z in the lazy morning night, 3 a.m. and she answers slow from the road. “i miss you,” he says, and “yeah, i know. you’re a good friend” she replies, because that’s what they are, jokes and hoaxes and she usually replies to his twitters and also she didn’t stop talking to him after the coke picture. she was fake mad that he wasn’t more witty to mtv, and then she said “honey. ryan. decide who you want to be, but if you’re going to be an idiot, i can’t hang out with you.” they breathe companionable for awhile, and then she says goodbye and he stares at the ceiling.

ryan sleeps some, gets up in the afternoon and eats tacos downtown with alex and jon, talks about the upcoming tour, and mostly isn’t there. “hey. hey.” jon shuffles a shoulder into him as they walk up the steps to ryan’s house after, and his breath smells like fish. ryan’s still thinking about the pictures, but in his head he’s superimposed the brendon he actually knows, stubborn and attention-grabbing and brilliant, always a bit brittle and sometimes loathing.

he’s also very kind. ryan’s not, he knows – too selfish, too uncaring when he does bother to be observant. ( _oh, you’re not that bad_ , spencer used to tell him on the bus, knees bumping on the couch. _suck it up. i’ve seen worse_.) but from the second brendon started singing lead on “camisado,” ryan understood him. ryan wrote the song, so he knew why brendon could sing it. he also knew that he could show up at brendon’s apartment and always be let in. when he wrote “time to dance,” he gave it to brendon first.

he pivots in the hallway, shuts the door in jon’s face, and goes to look for _live in denver_ on youtube.

ryan finds part of the after-concert interview and watches it with his hands over his mouth, more undone than he’s been since the band broke up and brendon wouldn’t come to the meeting. he listens to himself talk about brendon, a confident voice for confident lyrics, and thinks about what he was too coward to say for himself. he listens to brendon, “he could kind of hide behind my voice, i guess,” and thinks _fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, i gave you what you wanted to say all along, fuck you_. yeah, maybe he called brendon’s songs “little ditties” out of fear, and no, he doesn’t think _take a vacation_ is the most profound thing in the world, but back then brendon needed ryan as much as ryan needed brendon. (ryan knows that’s a lie. he knows the intermission is the most complex part of _fever_ , and that no one from pet salamander had any hand in it. when he used to fall asleep on tour to the sounds of his band breathing, he only ever thought about how to make them stay.)

he can hardly watch himself watch brendon, too embarrassed at his own open adoration, but he does watch brendon duck his head and laugh, and he feels the old satisfying anger in his stomach.

that night he calls alex, “let’s go out,” some party, someone’s apartment all hardwood floors and pbr and fake kente cloth couch covers. he ends up talking to the host, who seduces him by caring more about george harrison than what world tours are like. he goes down on her in her bedroom, one of her hands in his hair and the other on the doorknob. when she asks if he wants the favor returned he’s silent just the littlest bit too long, involuntary. “your loss,” she shrugs and goes back to the party, leaving him against the wall.

he finds alex and they do a few lines and early in the morning ryan falls asleep sitting upright and clothed in alex’s tub. sleep is salutary, the sun on his face and no dreams. waking he doesn’t think about brendon for five hours.

(then ryan goes home. he wants to make strong coffee or read kerouac or be at a club, anything but stay how he is, itching in the same way as at seventeen. instead he pulls the magazine out from under his bed and looks at it again. he’s hard when he shoves it away, the hot feeling in his stomach a mixture of shame and want and the need to make brendon stop repeating in his head, “he could kind of hide he could kind of hide he could kind of hide.” pinching his thigh as distraction becomes jerking off and ryan bites his lip viciously and comes thinking of brendon’s hands.)

he keeps simmering, all frustration and the inability to get out of his own skin. for two weeks he practices harder than he has since _fever_ , since the smiths’ garage and the first show. he needs to be on tour, needs the road, needs to not be in this fucking city and this fucking life and thinking about brendon fucking urie. he goes out with alex and jon and calls z and even texts spencer a few times, hey what’s up good luck r u nervous. on the day panic!’s album comes out, it arrives on his doorstep in an amazon box and he hustles it inside, turns off his phone, and sits with his blinds drawn and his back hunched and listens.

the album is really, really good. it’s nothing like what ryan wants to do and he swore he’d never play this kind of synthy dance pseudo-punk pop again, but it is _good_. he thinks about “new perspective” and laughing triumphant up his sleeve when it came out, reveling in its polished shallowness, ignoring that _pretty. odd_. and _take a vacation_ also wanted to be smooth. “new perspective” isn’t on the album, though. “oh glory” is, and sitting alone on his floor ryan can’t hide from the fact that he knows all the words to the leaked clip. panic! has grown up without him, and maybe they’re better produced then they ever have been before but that doesn’t mean they’re sly or snide. they’re just asking to be heard. ryan knows that this record will be dismissed by most critics as nicely packaged, and that not many of his new friends will embrace it, and that it is going to get radio play. but for all that some of the crowd at panic!’s concerts will sing along because the band is hot, some will sing along because they mean the words.

he’s happy with the young veins. he is. he likes the easy camaraderie and the low-key dappled sound. ryan likes the music, and he doesn’t think that turning his back on green day and blink-182 makes him a bad person. but his hands are fists at his sides and his fingernails are digging into his palms when the cd stops, and his head isn’t empty. it’s buzzing with “i just wrote shitty as they were lyrics on my own” and “sometimes it feels like you’re getting crucified” and he goes back to his computer and downloads all of _live in denver_ , sits in one place while the downloaded percentage get bigger and he pretends he’s enough of a narcissist to want to watch the movie. he presses play.

“my dad definitely was not supportive of me.” “he didn’t want me to take that chance.” the director knew so, so much more than they did, “we don’t let just bands be our influence, it’s anything that motivates us” cut into “camisado,” and no one making ryan stop talking. he sees himself so needy, so afraid, so unaware, “it allowed me to write whatever kind of lyrics i wanted to write because i knew he was gonna be singing them, and some of the lyrics aren’t exactly playing it safe” and brendon’s chuckle and ryan again, “it felt right to have confident sounding lyrics behind a confident voice i guess is what i’m trying to say,” talking about expecting brendon to understand vocal directions and their fights and brendon nodding, their argument over the bells in “sins,” and the whole time the ryan onscreen thinks he’s eloquent and composed but the camera knows better, the camera with its close-up on how he can’t stop looking at brendon. jon asks “who wants to write the same record over?” and brendon says he wonders if he can do this justice, “because these are your words how am i gonna be your voice?” and “how many of you are in the mood to dance? this song is for you.”

ryan knows they were friends. he knows they wrote “mad as rabbits” about crossing the country and he knows they used to stay together all night pretending to be asleep while really counting the cracks in brendon’s ceiling and he knows that when he threw up before times square it was brendon who sat next to him on the bathroom tiles and who held his hand after. he remembers laconic hide-and-go-seek at truck stops and trying to learn to blow smoke rings, but he also remembers complete lockdowns not on his part but brendon’s, silences that went on for days and this seething vitriol that always knew his weak spots. he thought their one unspoken promise was to never expose each other in public, but watching _live in denver_ ryan sees brendon stripping him raw for universal ridicule.

unboned he gets up and walks to his television, turns it on and stands waiting. 4:30 on mtv! spencer said, so ryan waits, and he waits. eventually he realizes his knees are locked and he sits on his couch, still staring unfocused and churning inside. 4:30 and there are spencer and brendon, some new show with some new host who isn’t really sure how to ask questions for calibrated responses, but spencer’s charming and rolls with it, innuendo and nice things to say, and brendon fidgets and talks with his hands. ryan curls his left one, palm up. he flattens it when he notices.

“one last question,” the host says, clearly thrilled that she’s getting them first after the album drops. “what do you think jon walker and ryan ross will think of the new sound?”

spencer smiles easy and scratches the back of his neck. “oh, you know, they’ve been encouraging. i think they’ll like it.”

“brendon?” the host pivots to him, polite with restrained eagerness, but ryan’s not looking at her. he’s looking at how brendon’s face has changed, and how he’s trying to hide it. “oh dude, i don’t know,” brendon grins, and ryan doesn’t breathe. “i don’t know. i haven’t talked to ryan.” _don’t_ ryan thinks and the host asks, kindly incredulous, “you haven’t heard from him? doesn’t he want to congratulate you?”

spencer tightens and ryan knows it’s because he wants to stop brendon but he can’t because panic! now means an equal voice for everyone. “oh, well, he’s busy, the young veins are busy, you know, i don’t think he’s heard the album yet –” and brendon’s just waiting to be prompted, ryan can tell, and the host obliges, “busy? what’s more important than your friends?” and brendon smiles, bobs his head, says, “hey, he’s trying to be famous. we had an interview one time, he said he wanted to be on t.v., he’d do anything. it was kind of a joke.” he chuckles and it’s not his nervous laugh but his cruel one. “it wasn’t really a joke, you know?” he shrugs, and that’s it, interview over, commercial for _the hills_ and ryan is out the door with no shoes on, doesn’t turn off the t.v., gets in his car and doesn’t blink once on his way to brendon’s house, doesn’t slow down or use turn signals or let pedestrians cross. he drives white-knuckled and so furious his shoulders shake, and when he gets to the house he kicks the door ineffectually and sits on the stoop, arms crossed and hands gripping tight enough to leave white marks on his skin. he’s so angry he should be looking at nothing, yeah, but instead he’s seeing those fucking pictures in his head.

he waits for a long time, bare feet on the warm concrete and anger not going anywhere. he slaps mosquitoes for an hour and adds each one to his list of grievances, blood getting faster and earlobes throbbing with the way he tugs them. it’s starting dusk when a car door slams on spencer’s genial “’night” and brendon comes walking around the curve at the end of the driveway.

he doesn’t stop when he sees ryan. he doesn’t stop dead and he doesn’t look shocked and he doesn’t run to ryan and beg forgiveness for the past year. instead he walks steady, and when he reaches ryan his mouth is tight and his shoulders too. “what,” brendon says.

ryan stands on the step. “that wasn’t fair.” he gives himself points for sounding held together. “you were wrong about the band, and you know it, and you’re jealous, and you’re wrong.”

brendon doesn’t tip his head back but he laughs big and ugly and steps right up. “jealous of _what_? the young veins’ fucking _success_?”

“fuck you,” because that was the only thing that made the interviews worthwhile, stupid smoked up interviews all to prove how okay he is, how together, he can still knot a perfect tie and match his socks, he hasn’t fallen apart. he likes the intimacy of small venues and the realness of them, he doesn’t need to be adored anymore, “fuck you, you’re wrong” and that’s right but brendon, “i’m wrong? i’m wrong? about the band? about _you_? don’t pretend you didn’t love every second of the cameras, i remember livejournal and your _ass_ –”

“oh because you’re so much better, _naked_ ” “oh right, like that wasn’t fucking hipster cocaine, really?” “ _naked pictures_ , i bet your _mom_ loved that” “don’t talk about – ” and brendon’s on the step now too because ryan’s standing and brendon may joke about being a small guy but he’s never liked it, so he’s trying to back ryan against the wooden door with his douchebag surfer presence and he hisses “what the fuck are you even doing, _look_ at you” and he reaches out and yanks ryan’s hair, hard.

“what, _what_ ,” they haven’t had a slapfest since 2006, ryan’s thrown, brendon’s hand is still tangled in his hair and his shoulder blades are warm against the grain of the wood. they would be breathing face to face except brendon shoves himself back, hands raised, “you know what? i don’t care,” and that’s a lie, ryan knows that’s a lie. he comes after. “what’s your problem?” he yells and this is ridiculous, they’re fighting in the middle of a paved brick driveway (a paved brick driveway, what kind of asshole has a paved brick driveway except pete!).

“just cut your – just cut your fucking hair, man,” and brendon pushes past him to unlock the door, face turned. ryan gets this is dumb but brendon started it. “no, i won’t cut my fucking hair.”

brendon says “i know” quietly to the doorknob, and the pattern of tension in ryan’s arms is so familiar he wants to scream. he thought he’d put _fever_ away, overproduced and honest, but there’s no one he knows so intimately right now as himself writing it, cramped in a tight corner on his bedroom floor. “you could do it,” he says, small. his hands are useless lumps when brendon pivots slowly, and everything’s on the surface.

“yeah?” ryan’s shoulders are curled over, defeated. “yeah,” and he follows brendon into the house, fingers lingering on the door as he pulls it closed and stands waiting. “i guess the – i guess the kitchen,” brendon says, jumpy, up on the balls of his feet, “i have to find scissors.”

ryan walks carefully behind, pretends this is totally normal, turns on the sink and waits for the water to get warm while brendon rummages in drawers. he cut ryan’s hair once on tour, bored and snapping about how he should have gone to arizona after all, that would have been better than this, and ryan told him to prove it. they were alone, parked outside the venue while jon and spencer were off getting food, and the thing ryan remembers most about it is how lightly brendon touched him.

ryan sticks his head under the tap and when he stands up, pushing hair out of his face with both hands, brendon’s put a chair in the middle of the room and is holding scissors. brendon tries a half-grin, “dude, you totally don’t have to do this, i mean, it’s pretty ugly but –” and ryan just pulls into himself and says “it’s long.” he sits.

brendon trims in tiny sections, hair cupped in his left hand and cutting with his right. sometimes he brushes the back of ryan’s neck with his knuckles, but it’s not purposeful. he’s quiet, concentrating, and ryan holds himself still in case brendon’s listening, worries brendon will hear him breathe.

when brendon finishes the tricky bits around ryan’s ears, he jumps back, “done!” with a flourish, “not too short!” “too short for what?” and ryan stands, awkward, pats around his own head. “oh, y’know,” and brendon pulls his deflecting face, his this-joke-isn’t-very-funny-but-at-least-i’m-in-on-it face, and ryan’s wrongfooted again, groping at some meaning hidden in plain sight. “i wish you’d just…say what you mean for once” he says, thinks hysterically somewhere in a corner of his brain _oh that this too too solid_ –, tries for grumpy moving into the hall, but brendon’s not buying him this time, “oh really? i thought your problem was that i _do_ say what i mean,” and ryan’s too tired, seethes with no fight left, turns away, shrugs half a shoulder, “the band –” “– _our_ band,” brendon presses, angry and up in his space, “stop forgetting that. _our_ band.”

ryan looks at him, tries to act tall though he feels shaky, says, “yeah, well. not anymore,” and brendon actually shoves him into the wall. “you don’t get to have it both ways!” he yells, though at once he looks even more shocked than ryan feels, and he backs up fast, says “you can’t decide when to care, ryan, because spence and i – spence and i – we care _all the time_ ,” and just like that he deflates. yeah, they fought on the first tours. yeah, brendon lashed back at ryan, and even picked some of the fights. but he could never stand people hating him, and now he’s slumped against the opposite wall, head down.

ryan stutters “i didn’t – that’s not – i’m really, really sorry,” and gives himself full credit for the worst apology in the world, so he shuffles forward, means it so much and wills brendon to know that. ryan stops like two inches away. “i’m really sorry,” he whispers. “i’m really, really sorry.” he watches his own hand reach out and nudge brendon’s hip, poke-poke-please-forgive-me-please, and when he looks up he stops for the way brendon’s watching him.

“i just…i miss you,” brendon says simply. that’s honest in the way he almost never is, and ryan can’t help it, he buries his face in brendon’s shoulder and just breathes in, hands automatically at brendon’s waist, holding on.

brendon’s arms are around ryan too, anchored or anchoring, and he whispers in ryan’s ear, “i used to watch you write.” ryan ducks his head even more firmly, _no_ , and brendon says “i did,” and ryan’s shaking a little inside, clenched down on all the things brendon means, but still brendon says, fierce and unsure, “i used to watch you _write_.” ryan steps away, puts his hand up to stop brendon talking, fingers to lips, _please_ , and brendon exhales. he very, very deliberately opens his mouth.

they’re staring at each other, eyes wide, and ryan thinks maybe they should be tableaux frozen but he’s pushing his fingers into brendon’s mouth and brendon’s taking them, moving, the pad of ryan’s thumb on brendon’s tongue and ryan steps forward, back into brendon, pushes him back against the wall, gets his knee between brendon’s legs and bites at his jaw. brendon’s silent, hips jutting up but no noise, and ryan is so grateful for that because it means he can pretend this is settled and inevitable, that he doesn’t have to think about how they’ve never done this before and for all their play never even tried.

he drops, lands heavy on his knees and not graceful, looks up for brendon’s permission but brendon’s head is tilted back against the wall and his eyes are closed. ryan mouths over the fabric of brendon’s t-shirt, no strip of skin between it and brendon’s jeans, the taste of warm damp cotton thick around the want in the back of his throat. he’s breathing hot over the fabric, but he can’t be here, can’t be on this floor waiting for everything to be taken away without brendon even present. but brendon strips off his own shirt and unbuttons his own jeans, pushes them down, and that’s enough. ryan rests his cheek on brendon’s hip for one second, panting open-mouthed, and then he takes the base of brendon’s cock in his right hand, presses down on his own with his left, and swallows around brendon, no preamble. ryan’s been here before, knows he’s good, and when he pulls back he’s aware of brendon’s hands in his hair, fingers twisting. he tugs a little against them before he goes back down. 

brendon keeps moving, so ryan knows he likes it even if he’s still making no sound, but then brendon’s pulling ryan off, not just pulling, and ryan looks up, angry and helpless and he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and says “i don’t know what you _want_ ” and brendon says “i want you to fuck me.”

ryan leans back and curls his toes into the carpet, tries for no inflection. “why?” he asks. brendon tugs his hair one more time and lets him go, palms skimming to the wall, looking up at the ceiling so all ryan can see is the line of his throat swallowing. “i want you to fuck me,” he repeats, quiet. “if that’s too much to ask –” and he still doesn’t look down. ryan scrambles up, takes brendon’s hand, cups brendon’s jaw and turns brendon’s face towards his and says “no, no, okay, whatever you want, whatever you want,” and brendon’s eyes are bright as he nods.

he tugs at ryan’s shirt, grins a little, and ryan looks down, unbalanced, finds himself still completely clothed. “oh,” he says, foolish, and gets naked as quickly as possible, totally undignified. he follows brendon down the hallway into the bedroom, brendon’s spine before him straight and proud and knobby and vulnerable. brendon’s bedroom is neat, more like he doesn’t live here much than like he’s a tidy person, and ryan smoothes down the already smooth navy blanket until brendon comes out of the bathroom, hands outstretched and holding lube in one and a condom in the other. his chest is flushed, and he looks like he’s trying not to flinch when he stares at ryan.

“how do you want this?” ryan asks, off-center, and brendon lies on his back in the middle of the bed. ryan clambers up and kneels, feels so ungainly while he slicks himself up and fingers brendon open, measuring brendon’s reaction by the sounds of the little huffs of breath he makes into his own shoulder, because once again his head is turned and he’s not looking at ryan.

ryan asks “okay?” and brendon nods, fingers clutching the blanket. ryan pushes in, stops, asks “how do you –” and brendon says “hard,” and ryan moves, and there’s no sound except their breathing, and ryan’s arms are taut with not reaching out, but he doesn’t know the boundaries. “do you want to, hey,” and he hooks brendon’s leg up around his shoulder, and that’s something at least, because he can rub his palm over brendon’s ankle bone and ryan’s imagined fucking brendon at least a million times, he’s imagined being fucked, but he never thought brendon would be this quiet, and ryan didn’t want to talk about what they were doing but this is something else.

he moves a hand toward brendon’s cock, and brendon snaps his head around to look at ryan. “stop fucking watching,” he grits out, sounding exactly how ryan feels, ugly and apart. ryan keeps thrusting and “no,” he says, because this will only happen once and he has to get it right, so he starts jerking brendon off and he probably needs his other hand for balance but he strokes it over brendon’s ankle again anyway, runs it down brendon’s leg and up over his hip, and brendon comes, finally finally loud.

ryan comes right after, bowed forward over brendon and hand inching toward his on the bedspread, and he pulls out and goes to throw away the condom in the bathroom and then he stands in the doorway, shifting. brendon’s still lying in the middle of the bed, and ryan waits. he doesn’t want to beg, he doesn’t want to give brendon that satisfaction, but he’s adrift and he will. brendon opens his eyes and looks over at ryan.

“come here,” brendon says. “please.” he pushes the messy cover onto the floor and burrows under the sheets, curls on his side, waits for ryan to climb in. “am i the big spoon?” ryan asks, thinking about bunks on the bus, shoving wars to get comfortable until someone invariably fell on the floor. brendon’s mouth quirks and ryan’s willing to bet he’s thinking of the same thing. “sure,” he says, and then “we should do this again sometime,” brash and hesitant together. ryan can feel himself grinning completely dorky, and he automatically raises his hand for a high-five. brendon high-fives him and then laughs like he can’t stop. ryan tries to duck, mortified, but brendon won’t let him, does a stupid little shimmy onto the same pillow and kisses him. “this is just because of those pictures, isn’t it,” he says, nosing at ryan’s jaw. “i’m just too hot to handle, right?” “oh yeah,” ryan says smiling. “that’s exactly it.”


End file.
